The Woman in the Doorway
by verybadwriter
Summary: Elliot had the three things he'd always said he needed to write his novel: a private cabin, a quiet beach, and a little town full of interesting people. Still, for his first three weeks in Pelican Town, he was as unproductive as ever. It wasn't until Amelia stepped into his doorway (and into his life) that he realized he needed a fourth thing: a story.
1. Elliot's Cabin

**The Woman in the Doorway**

Chapter 1 - Elliot's Cabin

A broad, second inversion G major chord rang out triumphantly from the piano's core as Elliot pressed his foot hard into the sustain pedal. He closed his eyes and exhaled into the sound of the decaying notes. Slowly, when the vibrations had all but stopped entirely, he released his foot, lifted his fingers, and closed the lid over. It was time to write this damn book.

Elliot stood up and ran his fingers through his hair. It was time to stop putting this off. Back at home, he knew a whole town's worth of people were expecting him, any day now, to stumble off the train and back to his real life. His friends, his old coworkers, and even his parents all thought it had been a ridiculous idea to move to Pelican Town to pursue a career as an author. They told him to keep working, to write after work or on his days off. Or worse yet, to just give up. In short, they didn't understand.

But now he was going to prove them all wrong. Or at least he was going to try. He had everything he'd always said he needed: a small private cabin, the salty smell of the ocean, and a quaint little town full of new and interesting people. There were no more excuses to make. It was time to write this damn book.

Creeeeak. The sound of the door's battered hinges pulled Elliot out of his thoughts.

"Oh!" said a woman, now standing in his doorway, silhouetted by the shockingly bright sun. "This is a house!"

Elliot just stared for a moment, unsure of how to handle the situation.

"I mean, umm, is this a house? Because I was just…are you Willy?"

Elliot exhaled in realization. "Ah," he said, "Willy. You'll want to head a bit closer to the shore. His shack is out on the dock."

"Perfect," she said. "This is a house. Wow, okay. That's super embarrassing. Sorry for barging in! And thanks for the help!"

"Not a problem." Elliot smiled at the stranger, squinting against the light.

After a few seconds of shared silence, the woman said "Soooo this way, then?" and pointed off towards the wrong side of the beach.

Elliot laughed. "Umm, how about I just show you?" He walked to his writing desk and slipped on a pair of brown dress shoes, then made his way to the door. As he approached her, he began to make out the details of her appearance little by little. She was wearing a brown jacket over a white T-shirt, and a pair of dark, tight jeans that fed into tall, brown boots at the bottom. Her face was small and boyish, and her hair waved down to just above her shoulders. She smiled, and it was a nice smile.

"Sorry," she said. "I'm new here, if you couldn't tell."

"I'm new, too," Elliot said as he stepped out onto the sand. "And don't worry about it. You'll get used to this place pretty quickly." He pointed towards a small shack at the edge of the water. "That's where you're headed, now. And please tell Willy that Elliot said hello!"

"Thank you so much!" she said, and she reached out for a handshake. "You're Elliot?"

"I am." He smiled as he took her hand in his.

"Every time I feel like I've met everyone here, I find someone new. My name's Amelia."

"Amelia." Elliot said her name back. "Well, you're always welcome to stop by and say hello. Just try to knock next time?"

"I'll do my best!"

After the two had said their goodbyes, Elliot closed his door, removed his shoes, and took a seat at his writing desk.

Amelia, the new girl in town. He wondered what her story was, what she did for a living, and he kicked himself mentally for not thinking to ask. And she sure was attractive, wasn't she? Why didn't he spend more time talking to her? He should have asked where she was from, at least. She mentioned she was new, so maybe she was hoping he would. For somebody who wanted to write novels professionally, Elliot felt he'd really dropped the ball on dialogue.

But nonetheless, his short conversation with Amelia seemed to be exactly the energy boost he'd needed to get started on his debut novel. As soon as he picked up his pen, the first sentence came to him:

 _The woman in the doorway had gone before I could even ask for her name._

And after this, the second sentence followed effortlessly, and then the third and fourth, each coming even more easily than the one before. Soon then, after three weeks of little to no progress, Elliot was pumping out page after page of what felt like a strong first draft. It was a story about a man who met the love of his life in the doorway of a shack on the beach. He felt a bit childish writing something so unflinchingly derivative of his own life, but it felt great to put this idea, this _fantasy_ on paper. It felt great to have a story worth telling.

After forty-or-so minutes, there was a knock on the door.

Is she back, Elliot wondered. He hurried quietly to the door and opened it to see, to his disappointment, a scraggly looking man in a brown cap.

"Willy!" he said, feigning excitement for his friend's sake. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

But Willy looked less than pleased. He frowned and shifted his feet like a guilty child preparing to apologize to an angry parent. "You familiar with a girl named Amelia?" he asked.

Elliot's face lit up. "Yes!" he said. "We just met, actually."

Willy looked down at his feet, the worry in his eyes growing more apparent by the second. "Well, I found 'er in my shack."

"Yes, she mentioned she was going there. Is something wrong?"

"Uhh, well, I mean I found 'er…" Willy paused. "She was on the floor when I found 'er. And she looked all sickly and she wasn't moving."

"What?!"

"I carried 'er to the clinic, but she's looking really bad, I guess. And uhh…" Willy swallowed before he continued. "They asked me to get you."

"Me?" Elliot stared.

"Yeah, Harvey did. He asked for you, specifically. And uhh, I dunno. They wouldn't tell me what for, but they need you over there."

Elliot's heart started racing. Something was very wrong here. What had happened to Amelia in the half hour that she'd been gone? And what did Harvey want him for? She certainly couldn't have asked for him, being unconscious, and even if she'd woken up, why would she have asked for someone she'd only just met today?

"Okay," he said. "Thank you, Willy. I guess I'll head over there now."

Willy frowned. "You want me to come with you?"

Elliot thought on this for a second. He felt uneasy about this whole situation, and it would be good to have someone there he could trust. "If you don't mind, I would like that, yes."

"Let me just lock up the shop."


	2. Harvey's Clinic

**The Woman in the Doorway**

Chapter 2 - Harvey's Clinic

"You know," Elliot said, "for a man who sees two patients on a busy day, Harvey keeps an absurd number of chairs in here."

Elliot and Willy sat side by side in the waiting room of the clinic, which would have seemed deserted if not for the muffled conversation they could hear a few rooms away. After twenty minutes of waiting, the seating arrangement was about all they had left to talk about. And indeed, there were several empty chairs between them and the receptionist's desk, some lining the mint green walls, some set up back to back in the center of the room.

"You think they ever run out of seats?" Willy asked.

"I doubt they've filled half."

"You'd be surprised," came a female voice from around the bend. As Elliot turned, he noticed a woman in a nurse's uniform had appeared behind the desk. She was smiling politely.

"Oh! Maru. Umm, hello," Elliot said, tripping slightly over his words. "I didn't notice you walk in."

"It's all good," she said.

"I'm sorry if I…I mean, I hope I didn't offend you when-"

"No, no," she assured him, "it's really fine. You're right, for the most part. We don't get very many patients here, the town being as small as it is. In fact, Harvey says he only had five chairs in here for the longest time."

"But you really do run out of seats sometimes?" Willy asked.

"Well, I've never seen it happen. But apparently someone was pretty seriously injured a few years back and half the town came to visit." Maru gestured around the room. "And that's why we have all these chairs."

"Ah, yeah," Willy said. "I remember now. Pam hit a tree on 'er way back from Zuzu." He seemed to drift off for a moment before smiling and adding "She sure did smile when she saw those cookies we made 'er, though."

Elliot looked back and forth at the two in wonder as he thought about his own hometown. He couldn't imagine his old neighbors banding together for anything at all, much less for a hospital visit. Pelican Town was really something else.

"Umm, Maru," he said, snapping back to the task at hand.

"Yes?"

"Willy told me that Harvey wanted to see me. That's actually why we're here now." Elliot turned to Willy, who nodded in confirmation

"Really?" Maru said, raising an eyebrow. "Huh. Well, I'll let him know you're here." As she turned to leave, she added "Sorry I didn't ask sooner. Those conversations about chairs always get me."

Elliot and Willy sat for a few more minutes before Harvey stepped into the room. He was a tall, skinny man known as much for his mustache as his medical knowledge. Elliot noticed his hair was even messier than usual, which was no small feat.

"Hello gentlemen," he said. His voice seemed almost too tired to make it to his mouth. "Elliot, thank you for coming on such short notice."

"It's no problem," Elliot assured him. Then he paused, unsure of how to go on. He was as curious as he was nervous, but he didn't want to let it show, though he wasn't quite sure why. "Is…everything all right?"

"Well, I'm doing what I can." Harvey turned back towards the door. "I'm just having a difficult time figuring out what exactly happened. She was fine this morning, by all accounts."

"You think she was poisoned?" Willy asked, standing up.

Harvey thought a moment before answering. "It wouldn't be my first guess, but…" He paused again. "I probably shouldn't be talking to either of you about this, honestly."

Elliot's heart rate started to climb as it dawned on him that perhaps he was asked here not as a witness, but as a suspect.

"Right," Willy said. "Sorry."

"I'll just say that a specialist is on his way over from Zuzu City, so hopefully we'll know more soon. And she's doing okay now, by the way. Unconscious still, but stable."

Elliot let out a sigh of relief. Never before had he felt so worried about someone he'd known so little.

"Harvey?" he asked, standing to join the other two. "Might I ask why you wanted me to come here?" His jaw tightened involuntarily as he spoke.

"Oh, yes, sorry," Harvey said. "Well, actually I'm not the one who wanted you to come. I was just the messenger."

Elliot blinked, then turned to Willy, who looked just as confused.

"The messenger for who?" Willy asked.

And then, as if his whole life were a T.V. prank show, Elliot watched the girl he'd met in the doorway of his cabin only hours ago saunter out from the office area and drop herself down in the chair across from him. She smiled up at him like a healthy, conscious person.

"For me," she said.

"Amelia!" Elliot said, almost shouting. Then, regaining control of his volume as he felt the heat of embarrassment rise to his face, "You…how are you here? What's going on?"

She laughed, clearly perplexed by his behavior. "What do you mean?"

"Willy told me you were hurt, or well, that you…that he found you…" He gestured towards the floor of the clinic. "And Harvey! What was all of this about a specialist, and not knowing what's wrong?" Elliot looked from face to face, desperate for answers.

"Ohhh," Amelia said, finally processing the situation. "I think I know what happened here."

Harvey laughed through a yawn. "It appears," he said, "that Willy made a little mistake."

"What'd I do this time?"

Amelia pointed at her face. "This is Amelia," she said. Then she pointed towards the office area. "The one passed out on the bed back there, with the purple hair, is Abigail."

"Dammit," Willy mumbled under his breath. "It's always the 'A' names, too…"

Elliot sat back down and put his head into his hands. Amelia, the one he came here to see, was fine. The one he was _asked_ here to see was…Abigail? He hardly knew Abigail. And the person who asked him to come was Amelia? And she wanted him to come because of… _Abigail_?

"All right," said Harvey. "Now that we have that all figured out, "I think I'm going to head back and see how Maru's handling things. Is that all right with everyone?"

The other three looked around at each other, then Amelia gave Harvey a nod.

"Just yell if you need me," he said, and then he disappeared down the hallway.

There was a brief silence while everyone recollected their thoughts. Elliot had more or less settled into the new reality, but he was now very curious as to what Amelia wanted from him. Luckily for him, she wasted little time getting to the point.

"Willy," she said," do you mind if Elliot and I talk in private?"

"Fine by me." Willy started towards the door. "I'm about ready for bed anyway after today."

"I'm right there with you," she said.

Willy paused in the doorway just long enough to say "Sorry for mixing up your names, by the way. I've always been bad with things like that…" And then he was gone.

Once the door was closed, Amelia turned back to Elliot. "So I'm guessing you want to know why you're here?"

"You've guessed correctly," he said.

"Read this, then."

Elliot flinched as Amelia thrust her hand towards his face. His eyes focused in on a small, folded piece of lined notebook paper which he hesitantly took from her and opened. On it was a list of names, scratched out in blue ink:

 _Abigail  
Amelia  
Elliot  
Marisa  
Matthew_

"What's this?" he asked after he finished reading.

"It's a list of names."

"Well, yeah, I know that." He looked at her. "What's it for? Why am I reading it?"

"Well, first of all, I'm pretty sure the reason Willy mixed up our names is because I walked over here with him when he brought Abigail over."

"He didn't mention that."

"Well, I did. Also, I was the one who found her on the floor like that. When I got to the shack, Willy was outside fishing. He told me to go in and look around while he put his stuff away," She grimaced a bit as she continued, "and when I got in there, she was just lying on the floor."

Elliot was on the edge of his seat. "So then you told Willy?"

"Yes. But first I got down to make sure she was breathing and everything. And that's when I found this." She pointed at the note. "It was on the floor right next to her."

Elliot felt a chill run down his spine.

"So I don't know," Amelia continued. "It's kind of like, scary, isn't it?"

Elliot looked back at the list. Abigail's name was first, followed by Amelia, and then him. "Yeah," he said. "It's…unsettling. What do you think it means?"

"Well, maybe nothing bad. It might be hers. Maybe it's just a list of…I don't know. People she wants to get to know better. Or something."

"Including herself?"

"Or something!" She looked around the room, then leaned in and began to whisper. "Look, I don't know what it means, but we can't just ignore it, you know? It could be…it could be something bad."

"So what do you propose we do?"

"Well," she started, "for now, I want to make sure Abby's okay. And I want to see what this specialist has to say. So let's wait."

Elliot looked around. "Here?"

"We could wait here. Or we could go to my place, if you want."

Elliot pretended to consider these two options for a good few seconds before answering:

"I suppose we don't need all of these chairs for just the two of us."


End file.
